Marle tried to recall when the ferry after hers left from Truce, but she simply could not pull this information from her memory. Obviously, she and Lucca had been looking forward to this festival so much that neither of them had stopped to think about Crono's favorite pastime.
Upon her arrival, Marle had managed to get them all a room at the inn, registering in all of their names. She had gone upstairs to the room only briefly to stash her luggage, then given the keys.
For awhile, she had tried to wait, to see if Crono and Lucca showed up anytime soon. When they didn't, she had grown tired of sitting around doing nothing and gone off to the festival alone.
Admitted, it still wasn't much fun without them. She felt a bit self-conscious, and wondered if there was anyone here who would recognize her… she was the princess, after all, and somewhat of a public figure (though she tried hard as she could to avoid the spotlight). Where were her friends?
When she heard footsteps rushing up behind her, her heart leaped, and she turned around. However, it wasn't her friends-all she saw was a strange man in a cloak.
"Your eyes," he said. "I can perceive the ice in them."
Marle cracked a very uncomfortable smile. "Um," she said, pointedly. "They're green."
Sound had a tiny urge to laugh, but this, too, was repressed. "I do not mean the color," he told her. "I speak of the depth; I see magic in your eyes."
"What makes you think I can use magic?" Marle asked, innocently, her eyes sparkling. Little did she know that the very shine in her eyes was exactly what this hooded man was looking for.
"Miss," he told her. "Why don't you just come with me over there. I will show you exactly how I know."
Marle narrowed her eyes. "Don't you think I'm smarter than that?" she snapped. "just because I'm a girl, alone, at a fair, doesn't give you the right to order me around like that."
He took hold of her hand. "I promise--"
"I'll scream," she threatened.
The man let go of her hand, and bowed. "Forgive me, then. Allow me to introduce myself. I am called Sound."
Sound's mechanized mind was buzzing with all this information. It was difficult to deal with a teenager such as this girl and still speak normally. As she stared at him warily, he searched his database for the information he needed. She would have to be silenced; that was for certain. After that, he would show her what the true mission was and then bring her to his master.
"Miss," he said. "I shall give you one more chance to follow me peacefully. After that, I will have no choice but to use force."
Marle looked around, wildly hoping to glance Crono or Lucca wandering about in the crowd. Unfortunately, there were no familiar faces to be seen.
She stared at the strange man about where she figured his eyes had to be. "No," she said.
Faster than she could have imagined, Sound placed a gloved hand over her mouth and began to drag her away. She tried to scream, but no sound emerged. She tried biting his hand; that was ineffective as well. And what was wrong with this festival crowd? No one seemed to notice that a seedy-looking guy in a cloak was dragging her away into a clearing of trees.
Sound threw her down to the ground on the grass. "Miss," he said. "I will now show you who I truly am, and what I have come here to achieve."
Sound pulled off his hood, and Marle began to scream. What she saw looked to be mostly a human head, but the upper left quarter of his head was covered in some sort of robotic apparatus; the kind of thing Lucca would have a field day with. Red, green, and blue lights flashed all about, and a red screen covered his left eye. His right eye was an unnaturally pale shade of blue. His skin was pale, and he had only a little hair on the right side of his head. It was a muted gray-green shade.
Sound quickly put out his hand, and Marle's scream ceased almost as soon as it had begun. She gasped, not knowing what had hit her. It had felt like magic-only, somehow, it was stronger than the magic she knew. She tried to make some sound emerge from her throat, but for the moment, she was completely mute.
"I am told," Sound said, "that you had a hand in defeating my master's Lavos."
She opened her mouth to protest, forgetting her affliction for a minute. Then, she simply glared and nodded.
"You cannot meddle in the affairs of higher beings," Sound lectured, his voice emotionless. He'd given up trying to sound human; he wasn't a human any longer. "I will bring you to my master, and you shall see this is true."

"Where is she?" Lucca muttered, in anger.
Crono shrugged.
"Yes, I know that you don't know," Lucca told him. "I was being rhetorical. Don't you think that something might be wrong?"
Crono shrugged again; Lucca rolled her eyes.
"Thanks for your input," she said, dryly. "I know that Marle can be a flake sometimes, but somehow I don't think she'd blow us off here."
"Maybe we should ask somebody," Crono suggested.
Lucca nodded. "Right, let's find someone."
They walked a bit and came upon a row of food booths. At the end of this row, there was a small table. A small blue imp sat there, exchanging people's gold for food coupons.
"Excuse me," Lucca said, hurrying up to it, Crono at her heels. "I was wondering-did you see a girl with blonde hair and green eyes, about our age?"
"She has a bright red necklace," Crono added. Lucca nodded in agreement.
The imp seemed to ponder this for a minute. "Maybe I did see her," the imp said, "but that was about an hour ago. Can I interest you in some food coupons? The berry pasties over there are extremely-"
"Later," Lucca said, and dragged Crono off with her. They toured the entire square, and while people claimed to have seen her, the last person who said so had said she'd been gone for fifteen minutes.
"She was there when I came over here," the man said. "Then I bought this-" he held up a lovely pewter flask-"and when I turned around, she'd left."
Crono and Lucca decided to go back to the inn and talk about it. They could stay there awhile, and if Marle came back there then their problems would be over.
"Hi," Lucca said to the imp running the counter. "did a Nadia Guardia XXXIII make reservations here earlier today? Room for three?"
"I can't give you that information, sorry," the imp said crisply.
"Maybe she got it in all our names," Crono suggested.
"Good thinking," Lucca told him. She reached into her back and pulled out her ID card. "How about Lucca Ashtear? Is there a reservation in my name?"
The imp thumbed through the thick book. "Yes, there is. Room three. Would you like your key now?"
"Yes, thank you," Lucca said, accepting the key from the imp. She and Crono unlocked the room, and relieved themselves of their overnight bags, which they'd been carrying around with them.
"Her stuff's here," Lucca said. "I wish I knew where she was! I really don't think she'd blow us off all of a sudden. Something has to be wrong."
"Probably," Crono said, flopping back on the bed. "What can we do, though? We've got no way to find her."
"If only we had something that reacted to Dreamstone," Lucca said.
"We don't carry that stuff anymore," Crono said pointedly. "That war is over."
Lucca sighed. "Maybe someone tried to kidnap her," she said. "She is the princess after all."
"I hope not," Crono said. "That's how the whole thing got started. I know that defeating Lavos was the most important thing we'll ever do with our lives, but I don't want to mess with that kind of thing anymore."
Lucca was thoughtful. It was true, the events that had changed all their lives had been set in motion when Marle had disappeared at Guardia's Millennial Fair. She thought the ordeal had been good for her, except for the part when Crono had melted at Lavos' hand in the undersea palace. Losing him had possibly been harder on her than anyone else, even if she hadn't shown it as much. People seemed to approve of Crono being paired up with Marle, the princess.
No one knew that this had happened to Crono. The three teenagers only told outsiders vague details of their adventures; they knew nothing of half the things that had happened. They only knew that they'd chased Lavos through time.
"Lucca," Crono said.
"Oh," she said, shaken out of her thoughts. "Sorry, what is it?"
"I have my sword," he said, gesturing to his bag. "We could go search the surrounding areas. If someone really did drag her off, we'll have to fight."
"Oh, but I'm unarmed," protested Lucca. "I was counting on us having a regular, peaceful time here."
"You could use magic," Crono told her. "Your magic is the strongest of the three of us, anyway."
"Remember, Crono," Lucca told him. "We've got to be normal."
"We're not normal," Crono said. "We saved this world. Nothing of this world stands a chance against any of us; we're that strong."
"Don't you want a normal life?" Lucca asked, then wish she hadn't. Everyone figured that Crono and Marle would probably get married when they were older and he'd become king.
Crono shrugged, elusively. "That's not an issue right now. Let's find Marle and then worry about being normal, okay?"
Lucca nodded. "All right, then."